Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. North wrote the music as a theme for the prison film Unchained (1955), [ 1 ] hence the song title. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack. [ 2 ]
Hy Zaret (born Hyman Harry Zaritsky; August 21, 1907 – July 2, 2007) was an American Tin Pan Alley [1] lyricist and composer who wrote the lyrics of the 1955 hit "Unchained Melody", one of the most-recorded songs of the 20th century. [2]
Unchained is a 1955 prison film written, produced and directed by Hall Bartlett (the first film directed by Bartlett) and starring Elroy Hirsch, Barbara Hale, Chester Morris, Todd Duncan, and Johnny Johnston. Based on the non-fiction book Prisoners are People by Kenyon J. Scudder, it is most remembered for its theme song, "Unchained Melody".
One of these became the famous song "Unchained Melody". [1] Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant.
With his own orchestra, he released a number of hits including "Ruby" (1953), "Unchained Melody" (1955), and "The Poor People of Paris" (1956), and is remembered for a version of "Sinner Man" (1956), definitively setting the sound with varying tempos, orchestral flourishes, and wailing background vocals.
On the heels of his "Unchained Melody" success, Hamilton recorded the following Great American Songbook singles in succession: Vincent Youmans' "Without a Song" (#77 US pop), Jimmy McHugh's "Cuban Love Song", Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Everybody's Got a Home But Me" (#42 US pop), from the musical Pipe Dream, and Frank Loesser's "Somebody ...
In 1954, Duncan was the first to record "Unchained Melody", a popular song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. The recording was made for the soundtrack of the obscure prison film Unchained, in which Duncan also played a minor character. Following Duncan's version, the song went on to become one of the most recorded songs of the ...
Their version of "Unchained Melody" stayed at number 1 for 7 weeks on the UK Chart, [1] selling more than 1.8 million copies and becoming the best-selling single of 1995. They had two further number-one singles, produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken – " I Believe " (1995) and " What Becomes of the Brokenhearted " (1996) [ 2 ] – and two ...